A snowy winter scene isn’t exactly standard summer fare, but that’s the sight that greeted beach-goers in Hong Kong over the weekend.

Millions of tiny white plastic pellets have been washing up on the city’s shores for the past two weeks, since the city was struck by the worst typhoon in over a decade last month. The storm knocked six containers containing 150 tons of plastic pellets off a ship just south of Hong Kong, sending a tide of white confetti pouring into the waters, which swiftly began washing up on Hong Kong’s shores.

Armed with gloves, pails and black garbage bags, this weekend over 1,000 volunteers gathered in Lamma Island—a popular residential community among expatriates—to help collect the white drifts. Another 200 volunteers assembled in Discovery Bay on Lantau Island to aid the effort there. By Sunday night, the government said that it has already collected half of the plastic pellets that had been spilled, including 50 tons of pellets in sacks that were scooped up from the water. The government said the clean-up effort is still continuing.

“This is an ongoing process,” secretary for the environment Wong Kam-sing told reporters on Sunday, pledging to stay attentive as the situation continues to develop.

In the meantime, environmental groups praised the government for its swift response to the spill, as well as the number of volunteers who are trying to help minimize the damage. Typically measuring just a few millimeters in diameter, the white plastic pellets—also known as “nurdles”—are used as the raw material to produce other plastic products. Experts say that while the pellets aren’t toxic themselves, they absorb chemicals and other pollutants from the environment, and could threaten fish or other marine life that consume them.

“Once in the water, [a pellet] acts like a sponge and absorbs pollutants,” says Gary Shepherd, who runs the Hong Kong chapter of Sea Shepherd, a non-profit organization that supports marine life conservation. Mr. Shepherd said that the spill will be lethal to the local fish population, though it may take months or years for the impact to be fully seen.

Though some of the pellets washed into Hong Kong’s fish farming regions—including waters near areas where the endangered Chinese white dolphin is occasionally seen cavorting—the government says no abnormal activity or fish deaths have so far been reported.

The government also said the food risk from eating contaminated fish was “unlikely to be significant,” given that most of the fish consumed in Hong Kong are not caught in local waters.